Deeds Office Contact Details

There is no single deeds office. Deeds Registration, an entity of the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development, runs ten registries and your property is registered at the one covering the area where it stands, not the one nearest your home. Getting that right is most of the battle.

Every registry publishes an information section correspondence mailbox alongside the registrar. Write to the correspondence address rather than to the registrar: it is the desk that answers public queries, and it does not go stale when the registrar changes. Operating hours are Monday to Friday, 07:30 to 15:30, at all offices.

Gauteng, Free State and Limpopo

• North Gauteng, Pretoria: 012 338 7048, information section 012 338 7034 or 7382 or 7000, fax 012 338 7165, Berea Park, 600 Lilian Ngoyi Street, Pretoria Central, 0002, PTACorrespondence@deeds.gov.za
• South Gauteng, Johannesburg: 011 843 8301, information section 011 843 8307 or 8335, fax 011 843 8305, Marble Tower Building, corner Jeppe and Von Weiligh Streets, Johannesburg, 2000, JHBcorrespondence@deeds.gov.za
• Free State, Bloemfontein: 051 403 0342, information section 051 403 0394 or 0395, fax 086 698 4947, corner Nelson Mandela and Aliwal Streets, Bloemfontein, 9300, blmcorrespondence@deeds.gov.za
• Limpopo, Polokwane: 015 495 1981, information section 015 495 1963 or 1969, 101 Dorp Street, Polokwane, 0699, LMPCorrespondence@deeds.gov.za

Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga

• Eastern Cape at Qonce: 043 642 2741, fax 043 642 4539, 113 Alexandra Road, Private Bag X7402, King Williams Town, 5600, KWTcorrespondence@deeds.gov.za
• Eastern Cape at Mthatha: 047 531 2150, fax 047 531 2873, 40 Blackway Road, Mthatha, umtcorrespondence@deeds.gov.za
• KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg: 033 355 6810, information section 033 355 6879, 300 Pietermaritz Street, Private Bag X9028, Pietermaritzburg, 3200, PMBcorrespondence@deeds.gov.za
• Mpumalanga, Mbombela: 013 756 4021 or 4022, fax 013 756 4092, 25 Bell Street, Old BMW Building, Private Bag X11239, Mbombela, 1200, InfoDeedsMp@deeds.gov.za

Note that the Eastern Cape has two registries, and they are not interchangeable. Qonce is the current name for King Williams Town, which the department still uses in its own postal address.

Western and Northern Cape

• Western Cape, Cape Town: 021 464 7601, information section 021 464 7741 or 7740 or 7651 or 7600, fax 021 464 7725, 2 Riebeek Street, Cape Town City Centre, 8000, CPTDeedsInfo@deeds.gov.za
• Northern Cape, Kimberley: 053 832 7228, fax 053 839 0750, New Public Building floors 9 and 10, corner Knight and Stead Streets, Kimberley, 8301, DeedsInformationKimberley@deeds.gov.za

Why the registrar mailboxes are not listed here

The contact page names each registrar and several information officers individually, with personal mailboxes and in two cases personal mobile numbers. Those are not reproduced. Registrars move, and a query sent to a person who has left is simply never answered. The correspondence mailboxes above are the ones the department maintains for the public.

What a deeds office can and cannot tell you

It holds the register: who owns a property, the title deed number, bonds registered against it and any interdicts. It can give you a copy of a deed and confirm ownership. It does not value property, does not resolve boundary disputes, does not handle municipal rates, and cannot transfer property for you. Transfers are lodged by a conveyancer, and only a conveyancer may lodge them.

If you are waiting on a transfer, your conveyancer can see the lodgement status and the registry cannot speed it up for you. DeedsWeb, the online search service on the departmental site, answers most ownership questions without a call.

If something goes wrong

The site carries a formal complaints route, a service charter setting out turnaround times, a published fees schedule and a section on handling disputes. Read the fees schedule before paying anyone for a deeds search: the official fees are public, and a quoted price far above them is a signal worth questioning.